The Piuma, a closer look - and my near future flying forecast

**RknRusty** Mon May 25, 2015 11:15 pm

This scratch built plane that was given to me has the potential to be a real beauty. It has an I-Beam wing, with ribs that are more like bones. Sort of like the ribcage of a fish. And it allows strength with very light weight.

Here is the Piuma, which means Feather in Italian. On the tail it has the builder's name and date, Bob Zambelli, October 5, 1999. The skin of the wing has completely dry rotted, a couple of ribs need to be re-made, and I'm going to cover it with dope and tissue to restore it to its original form, including the now faded artwork.

You can see the ribs best in this view
The Piuma, a closer look - and my near future flying forecast Pieuma%205_zpscw2jsor8

The Piuma, a closer look - and my near future flying forecast Pieuma%205_zpscw2jsor8

It is covered with lightening holes that can be seen in the fuselage
The Piuma, a closer look - and my near future flying forecast Pieuma%204_zpsowjorlly

The Piuma, a closer look - and my near future flying forecast Pieuma%204_zpsowjorlly

Here is the Piuma, or Feather painted on the wing
The Piuma, a closer look - and my near future flying forecast Pieuma%201_zpsdt0v5lcu

Very sleek with a stylish air scoop under the carved nose
The Piuma, a closer look - and my near future flying forecast Pieuma%203_zps6cv03x8q

I'm excited about this one. As it is on the table, it weighs about 17 ounces, 50" wingspan, 11" root chord, and 33" fuselage. The thick part of the airfoil is 1-1/2" at the spar. The controls are in very good condition, no reworking is required, and nothing is wrong with the fuselage. Just needs a tank and engine. I think a 25fp would do the job nicely.

At Joe Nall I saw a similar but larger plane that had this construction, called Juno, built and flown by Bruce Jennings. Here's Bruce's plane. Note the rib and spar construction.
The Piuma, a closer look - and my near future flying forecast Jennings1

The Piuma, a closer look - and my near future flying forecast Jennings1

Anyway, I hope y'all find this interesting.
Rusty

**Cribbs74** Mon May 25, 2015 11:34 pm

I like it!

Though, in my lowly opinion the plane would look a little better with the canopy a few inches forward.

Ron

**RknRusty** Mon May 25, 2015 11:49 pm

Cribbs74 wrote:I like it!

Though, in my lowly opinion the plane would look a little better with the canopy a few inches forward.

Ron

My lowly opinion thought that right off the bat. But it stays, I'm not creating any more work than I already have.
Rusty

Ken Cook Tue May 26, 2015 4:24 am

Rusty, Bob usually covers in silk. I only ever seen one plane that he covered in silkspan. Typically he uses Randolph butyrate. If you were to strip the silk, I would think due to it's strength, it would peel off quite easily. If not, I would strip the open bays and cover from there. Proceed any fillet areas with caution. Bob uses baby powder and clear dope to make a paste for his fillets. These can easily be damaged. Ken

**RknRusty** Tue May 26, 2015 10:39 am

Ken, this silk is coming off in bits and pieces, it has no integrity whatsoever. Am I right in thinking Brodak dope is Randolph? I'm sending a shopping list with Wayne to Brodak's fly-in in June. He and Will Davis will be riding up together.

After I fix the ribs I'll have Wayne supervise my re-covering job, plus I have volumes of your own instructions on the subject. And I'll get Bob on the phone and bend his ear... or more likely he'll bend mine lol.

Have you ever seen this plane in real life? Bob's choices of colors are... odd, but I plan to stay as close to the original colors as my stomach can tolerate.
Rusty

getback Tue May 26, 2015 12:06 pm

That's a very interesting looking airplane for sure with all the lighting holes 1/2 ribs and that wing spar thing . should be a fun plane to fly . That stuntman 23 is looking good in the back ground too // those colors are yet to be desired though as you had mentioned Rolling Eyes

Are you going to do a thread on wish I had never decided to put silk on this thing Eyebrows

Ken Cook Tue May 26, 2015 3:15 pm

Brodak is Randolph and so is Sig. However, they're both slightly different. Bob mixes his own colors always has. My thoughts though if you were going to brush, I would probably use Brodak on that plane. The only reason I say this is due to the thinner being hotter and it will flash off faster. Bob more than likely had Brodak colors on hand when he mixed it. The actual Sig thinner is slower drying and could cause possible alligatoring or softening of prior attachment coats. Bob could tell you a lot more because I know he's intermixed Brodak before. We use Dupont 3608S for thinner and this is universal to Sig and Brodak and others. It's around $20 a gallon. It's since changed it's name now being Chromax 3608S. If I did see this plane, I don't remember it well. Bob attaches many Italian names to his planes. Bob does have a different choice of taste in colors. I find it somewhat amazing though. He can pull off something at times that I would never even consider. I commend his efforts. Ken

**RknRusty** Tue May 26, 2015 5:38 pm

Thanks, I will be brushing.

Also a correction. The airframe only weighs 17 ounces, not 27 as I posted above. So yeah, 25fp.

Ang good news, my 35fp and a 4 0z Dubro clunk tank dropped into the Nobler like Manna from Heaven. I'll be flying it next time out.

Rusty

**RknRusty** Tue May 26, 2015 6:18 pm

Ken Cook wrote:...If I did see this plane, I don't remember it well. Bob attaches many Italian names to his planes. Bob does have a different choice of taste in colors. I find it somewhat amazing though. He can pull off something at times that I would never even consider. I commend his efforts. Ken

I'm just honored to be the benefactor of such expertly built equipment. After more examination I am going to outfit it with some new .027 leadouts. The old ones look more like .018 flying line, though I haven't put the caliper on them. His swaging job is nice and I may do the same, as wire wrapping the thick wires is tough on my fingers. Not so bad with flying lines, I always wrap them.
Rusty

Ken Cook Tue May 26, 2015 7:18 pm

Rusty, Bob is a very impressive and knowledgeable builder. Nothing is overlooked and he has used some of the most amazing techniques imaginable. I have to say when he's got his A game on he's quite a flyer as well not only in stunt but also in combat. I hope all goes well with this plane. Ken

**RknRusty** Tue May 26, 2015 8:46 pm

It will, it's a nice one.
Bob's mostly been flying OTS lately, maybe Nostalgia and Judging too. He and Ken Armish judged me in Intermediate at Triple Tree and all four of their score sheets were within 2 points of each other. Nice to have pros judging, except my score showed it too. I made a 414.5, way off the top three pace. I didn't know he flew Combat.
Rusty

NEW222 Tue May 26, 2015 8:58 pm

Very nice looking plane, and quite a nice job of building. I would love to be able build like that one day.

**RknRusty** Tue May 26, 2015 9:30 pm

I'm going to an MCLS club meeting Saturday in Huntersville and the long range forecast is 90 and light wind, SSE at 5 mph. That's a fair direction for the paved circles, not so much for the grass circle, but hardly enough blow to notice anyway. I'll "maiden" the Nobler over the grass and try not to hit another tree. And definitely fly the Yak, I was so disappointed it didn't get to fly Sunday. All pre-flighted and nowhere to dance. Maybe even a 1/2A too.

Also in the news... after watching a father and two young sons at Joe Nall play Combat with some little planes with parts-box Coxes on them, Wayne and I decided we want to learn to play Combat too. I have two Blackhawk Kom-Bats from the kit pair my son gave me a couple of Christmases ago. And thanks to Cribbs, I have two perfect external tank Coxes, both brand new. I suppose we'll use a pair of wing-wrap stooges.
Rusty

**RknRusty** Tue May 26, 2015 9:30 pm

NEW222 wrote:Very nice looking plane, and quite a nice job of building. I would love to be able build like that one day.

Haha, yeah, me too.

TDbandit Wed May 27, 2015 12:11 am

Very nice man it's gonna be a beaut when done One of these days i'm gonna get started in stunt and it's lookin' like I'm gonna have to try and learn on my own. Hardly anyone flies C/L in my area anymore. Oh on a side note I bench ran that OS .25 loop port engine you sent me a while back and have a video haven't uploaded it yet but if ya want to see it i'll upload it and post it. Ran great btw and hopefully it's going to be on something soon. Smile

(Bandit)

**RknRusty** Wed May 27, 2015 4:00 am

Hi Bandit.
I'd love to see it because it was an unknown engine to me and I was only hoping it was a good one. Most of the OS 25s will match or exceed the performance of the Fox 35 than so many of the older 35 models were designed for. The FP series has proven that it does.

If there is a club within 75 miles of you, maybe you could find someone who could at least check on your progress every few weeks. The problem with learning CLPA is, you'll be unknowingly practicing errors and committing them to muscle memory without a mentor. Then it's harder to unlearn those mistakes.
Rusty

TDbandit Wed May 27, 2015 10:55 am

Ok i'll do it give me a few days though because it's a fairly long vid and my internet here sucks something serious. Smile

As far as I know there are no C/L clubs in the entire state of Georgia I haven,t checked in Alabama yet though. I was hoping Bob Dixon would be able to help but apparently he's not flying much any more and no one has or I haven't seen him lately. There is one of the guys at my club fixing to restart flying C/L who is building a Fox powered ringmaster used to fly stunt but he hasn't flown in 40 years and is willing to help but he wants to get his bearings back again first so I'm going to let him fly my 1/2A skyray to get back into it (Hopefully he can help) going to build a stunt bee for it though since the Arrow while pulls it like crazy is non stunt. (Bandit)

**RknRusty** Wed May 27, 2015 3:20 pm

Bandit, I posted a question on Stunthangar as to where you might find some stunt resources in your area. We'll see what pops up. I posted it in the Open forum as being near Macon.
http://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php/topic,39483.msg404079.html#msg404079
Rusty

TDbandit Wed May 27, 2015 3:47 pm

RknRusty wrote:Bandit, I posted a question on Stunthangar as to where you might find some stunt resources in your area. We'll see what pops up. I posted it in the Open forum as being near Macon.
http://stunthanger.com/smf/index.php/topic,39483.msg404079.html#msg404079
Rusty

Thanks man I forgot about posting on SH, there is one flier Badbill (Bill Davinport) who's on SH, lives in centerville which is in the middle of warner robins but i don't know if he competes or not i've been trying to get together with him but he's been real busy as of late. (Bandit)

**RknRusty** Wed May 27, 2015 9:05 pm

Bandit, there's a little action on the thread at SH, but it looks like you're mostly a step ahead. There is one interesting bit about a CL circle at a big RC club called GAMA - Georgia Aircraft Modelers Association, in Fort Valley.
Rusty

TDbandit Thu May 28, 2015 9:32 am

RknRusty wrote:Bandit, there's a little action on the thread at SH, but it looks like you're mostly a step ahead. There is one interesting bit about a CL circle at a big RC club called GAMA - Georgia Aircraft Modelers Association, in Fort Valley.
Rusty

Yup I'm a member of that Club the circle you are referring too is where I shot the video where it was flying my skyray. GAMA has two fields btw and there is talk of building another C/L circle there at the second field too Smile

(Bandit)

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The Piuma, a closer look - and my near future flying forecast

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Re: The Piuma, a closer look - and my near future flying forecast

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